


Mise en Place

by vextant



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Bucky Barnes Cooks, Comfort Food, Domestic Bliss, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 18:51:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17493350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vextant/pseuds/vextant
Summary: After everything, Natasha and Bucky enjoy a homecooked meal together.





	Mise en Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taralkariel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taralkariel/gifts).



> A Secret Santa 2018 gift for the prompt "MCU domestic bliss".
> 
> Hope you enjoy! :)

“Hey, go ahead and find a stopping point, it’s almost done.”

Natasha didn’t so much hear whatever it was that Bucky said as the words filled themselves in after she realized that he was speaking to her. She’s in the only comfortable chair in the apartment, six tabs deep in the Avengers remote desktop on her laptop, desperately trying to reconcile her requisitions totals to submit for the new budget. She has never and will never understand why the fiscal year and the calendar year have to start so far apart. 

Bucky, who pointedly refused to be an Avenger and thus is blissfully free from crunching numbers, is making dinner in the little kitchen. Something heavy and wet is bubbling in a big pot on the stove — he himself is standing a few steps away from her, trying to get her attention. “Nat, did you hear me?”

“Yeah.” She knows she sounds distant as soon as she says it. “Yeah. I’m wrapping up.”

He nods, satisfied. 

Natasha turns her attention back to her screen and hears his footsteps retreat. She’s got no idea how to “find a stopping point” — she’s not even sure she ever really passed a starting point. Either way, her interest is piqued in the prospect of dinner. Without Bucky being so keen on preparing his “three squares” each day, she’s not even sure she’d ever eat regularly, because prior to the mess with the infinity stones food had just always  _ been _ there, at Avengers Tower and the Complex, so she had only eaten when she was hungry. 

Bucky certainly has a different relationship to food than she does. He’d been a line cook after he’d broken free of Hydra, after S.H.I.E.L.D. went down — or so he told everyone. There’s not much evidence, and while he says a lot about the kinds of places he’d worked, they’re not exactly the kind of establishments that kept a formal payroll. But the proof is in the pudding. Well, not  _ pudding _ exactly — nobody he cooks for is big on sweets except sometimes Peter, and Bucky’s not really one to make something just for himself — but how he cooks nowadays tends to corroborate his story. 

It started with the bananas. They were too green to eat just yet, so she’d left them on the counter next to the sink to ripen a little, and when she came back from her surveillance, half of them had been fried into thin crisps. Nobody took responsibility, and Sam — by far the most adventurous eater among them — denied ordering anything in. 

They’d been delicious, tinged with lime and salt. The next time it was her turn to do the shopping, she’d brought home the greenest bananas she could find and it was only then that she’d caught Bucky heating up oil later that night. He admitted he’d gotten a taste for them working a street stand in Indonesia. 

After that, he’d gotten much more forthright with his cooking. None of them were very picky — except Pepper, who only had to tell Bucky once about her strawberry allergy — and besides Steve’s occasional stubborn fit about never wanting to eat another potato in his life, they’ve all been very encouraging, because then they all get to reap the benefits.

Bucky still has a hard time taking outright praise. If they thank him, he’ll mutter quietly that it’s not a problem. If they say anything at all to him about whether they thought it was good (highly likely, he’s very skilled), he’ll nod and move on. Offering to help clean up is a chore in itself. Natasha will always push to help anyway, because she knows how easy it is to slip back into that strange haze of subservience that they both lived in once upon a time. 

Today it’s just Natasha and Bucky. Big group meals getting rarer and rarer, since the more time that passes after the Thanos Incident the bolder other threats grow. The world needs people like them on watch 24/7. They’ve elected a sort of fire department model, with everybody getting three days on duty, one day on call, and one day off, staggered shifts so they always have a team of three ready to go and two backups in case evil does double duty that day. Sam is also technically off right now, but he has a “rendezvous” that both Natasha and Bucky know is a date because Sam’s phone was on the table earlier today when “Claire” texted him to meet her at seven-thirty.

Natasha’s computer screen is still a mess of numbers, the tabs reordered and divided into separate windows according to a system of organization she no longer remembers. She saves copies of all of them in a desktop folder that she names with today’s date, and then closes the lid. 

“Nat?”

“What?” It comes out a little snippy, but that’s mostly because she’s startled. She sets the laptop aside as she stands and throws him a smile to emphasize that she didn’t mean it. 

“Just wanted to know your drink order.” 

“That depends on what’s cooking.”

He answers with an easy smile, and she knows she won’t get any more than that. It’s a sort of game they play whenever dinner’s just the two of them. No winners, no losers, no stakes. Just a guessing game. 

It’ll be hard to guess what they’ll be enjoying tonight, as he’s chosen the largest pot to brew his latest concoction in. He’s never been big on soups — once, when she asked, he told her that making soup isn’t enough work for him — but that’s probably her best guess. She scans the kitchen for confirmation. Bucky’s leaning against the fridge with his arms crossed over his black apron and a little grin at the corner of his mouth, because he knows exactly what she’s doing. 

Natasha looks him over, just once — the shirt he’s wearing fits him nicely, but she’s more interested in the dark, wet red marks on his apron. “Pasta sauce?”

“Warm, but not exactly right.”

She tries not to sigh as her mind runs through example after example of non-pasta dishes with tomato sauces. “What cuisine?”

He thinks on it a moment. “American, far as I know. But I put a little twist in.”

_ American  _ cuisine. The running joke, as a Russian, is to laugh out loud and ask if he’s just chopped up hot dogs, boiled them in ketchup, and called it cuisine. But the part of her that’s lived longer in the States than she had in Russia knows that this makes everything more difficult — the Americans  _ love _ their tomatoes.  He’s already cleaned up too, which makes it impossible to guess from the other ingredients. There’s a long, waxy leaf sticking out from under the garbage lid that makes her think some kind of fruit. 

Fruit and tomato? That’s not helpful. Truth be told, it doesn’t sound very appealing either. 

“You stumped?” The grin on his face has her thinking that he lives for confusing her. “C’mere.”

Bucky beckons her to the stove and opens the smaller of the two pots, and — and it’s just rice. Rice, and an American dish with tomato sauce. With fruit, somewhere in that combination.

Then he opens the big pot, and the answer hits her at the same time the smell does. 

“James Buchanan Barnes,” she says slowly, “Did you put pineapple into chili?”

“Yeah, I found a recipe.” He looks so smug and proud of himself in that moment that she can’t help but smile a little too. They’re sort of just staring at each other until he says, “So? Drink? We have wine.”

That doesn’t sound half bad. If she knew better, she’d think he was trying to impress her. “What kind?”

“Uh, a zinfandel blend, I think? Figured fruit goes well with fruit.”

“Let’s hope so.”

  
  


 

When it’s time to eat, Bucky makes her sit down first so he can pour her wine for her, half-bowed with one hand behind his back.    


“The chili stains on your apron are kind of ruining the atmosphere.” Natasha takes a sip. She’s always wary of blends, but this one is a perfect balance of dry and sweet. He’d even put it in the freezer for a few minutes, so the chill just adds to the refreshment.

“What atmosphere?” He says as he pours his own and sits. “Dig in.”

Dinner is delicious, because of course it is. The pineapple isn’t sweet like she thought it’d be, it’s a good tangy offset to all the savory meat, beans, and sauce. She wants to eat it all.

“You think they’ll like it?”

“I think you should tell Steve it’s got potatoes in it.”

He snorts. “I just don’t want Wanda going into the leftovers thinking it’s paprikash.”

“She won’t, trust me. And she won’t be disappointed either.”

Bucky just nods, which is what she was expecting. They chew in silence for a while. The food is good and neither of them is the type to fill silence with empty chatter. 

Natasha watches him empty his own bowl twice over. She starts to stand and gently says, “I’ll start cleaning up.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s mostly done anyway.” He finishes his bite and looks up at her. It’s like he’s trying to mentally will her to sit back down, but that’s not going to fly when it’s only the two of them.

“Suck it up, I’m at least helping you with the dishes.” Taking her own plate in hand, she doesn’t look back as she heads into the kitchen and opens up the dishwasher. It’s already meticulously stacked with everything he used to make dinner, with just enough space for their bowls.

“Or you can just help me finish this wine.”

Natasha smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> > "Mise en place" is a French phrase used mostly in cooking that means "everything in (its) place"  
> > Kripik pisang is the Indonesian style of frying banana chips, where the banana slices are soaked in lime juice and salt water before frying. To my knowledge, South Africa and Colombia also have their own distinct takes on it --it's my understanding that in Colombia they're a dessert because they're fried in honey.  
> > As far as the internet knows, chili or chili con carne has its origins in the American West. Some folks speculate that it came from Spanish settlers with the name already attached in the 1600s-1700s.  
> > "Chopped up hot dogs, boiled them in ketchup": I have eaten this and not minded it, which is how I know I have no sense of taste.   
> > Pineapple in chili: You can theoretically put anything in chili as long as it has meat, beans, and sauce (and Texas-style chili doesn't even have the beans). It's a very loose definition. I've never made pineapple chili myself, but a friend of mine made it once for a chili cook-off and it was _divine_.  
> > I am not a wine expert and literally googled "fruity wine" for this fic.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
